Teamwork
by Illuse
Summary: When Dick goes missing, Tim calls Jason back to Gotham to help find him. The two of them search through the cities' seedy underbelly, following his trail. But, will he still be in one piece when they find him? M for language and blood
1. Chapter 1

The biting wind spun itself in circles through the small, awkwardly shaped park, stirring the wet leaves up into the air and throwing them against the ankles of the young man leaning against the lamp post. His hands shoved deep in the pockets of a stained denim jacket, he seemed to be entertaining himself by kicking a soda can back and forth across the stones. The dented cylinder bounced back towards him, and he popped it up into the air before juggling it with the top of his foot for a few minutes. Another gust of wind whipped through the park and the can was blown off course, missing the young man's foot by a few inches and clattering to the ground. He pulled one hand out of his pocket to plough the hair back out of his face before tracking the can down and punting it back over to the light post.

As his shoulder came back into contact with the post, his eyes tracked up towards the far end of the park. The sound of sneakers slapping the wet ground echoed off the nearby buildings as another young man, more of a teenage boy actually, jogged in his direction, a backpack bouncing on his shoulders. He was clothed in the uniform indicative of one of Gotham's many private high schools, the collar of a white shirt peeking out from beneath a crimson sweater that had been folded up at his elbows. A black blazer had been tied around his waist, and there was white pinstriping at the ends of the knotted sleeves.

The boy stumbled to a stop just a few feet from the other man, slipping a little on the slimy leaves. He folded forward and braced his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. The older man watched him with a raised eyebrow, rolling the can under the sole of his foot.

The schoolboy looked up a him with a relieved looking smile. "I didn't think you'd show." He said finally.

"Well, you thought wrong." The other responded, popping the can up into the air again and punting it over the fence and into the bushes.

A few moments later, the two of them were sitting beside each other on one of the park benches, the man in the denim jacket with his elbows hooked over the back of the bench, and the schoolboy with his head bowed and his hands tucked between his knees. An awkward silence hung between them before denim boy dropped his head back and released an annoyed groan.

"You better not have called me here just to catch up Tim. I've got shit to do." He complained, rolling his head towards the schoolboy.

Tim opened his mouth, but then quickly closed it again, gritting his teeth. He pursed his lips, and his jaw worked up and down as he seemed to be tasting his words.

Sighing, denim boy rocked forward and tucked his hands back into his pockets as if he intended to stand.

"Jason, you haven't seen Dick recently have you?" Tim suddenly blurted.

Jason tripped on the uneven ground and blinked back down at the younger boy. "What?" He spat at him.

Tim was staring up at him, his lower lip held tightly between his teeth, his eyebrows furrowed, and his fists clenched atop his knees. As Jason stared back at him, he almost thought he saw tears welling up in the boy's eyes.

"I said, have you seen or heard from Dick at all recently?" Tim repeated slowly and deliberately, the fingers on his hand clenching and unclenching rhythmically.

Jason raised an eyebrow at him and settled back on his heel. "Nope." He replied flatly.

A look of despair flickered across Tim's face before his head bobbed down on his shoulders. Jason didn't see it, as he was looking up and away at a newspaper page floating precariously on the wind. After a few more minutes of silence, he tapped his foot impatiently and reached up to scratch the back of his head.

"Is that it? Listen Tim, I've got shit to take care of. You could have just called-".

"God dammit Jason, Dick is missing! Can you pretend to care at all?" Tim shouted suddenly, slamming his fist down on the bench in a burst of anger.

Jason blinked, his fingers freezing on the back of his head. The back of his neck went suddenly very cold, but not because of the wind. He turned towards Tim slowly, pivoting on the ball of his foot. "What?" He said slowly.

Tim sat with his head bowed and his fists clenched beside him as fat tears fell from his eyelashes and splashed onto his knees, staining his slacks dark. His shoulders trembled, and as Jason was looking at him he sucked his lip into his mouth again and shook his head quickly.

Jason tilted over closer to him. "Tim." He said. "What?"

"About two months ago Dick told me he needed to go and take care of something. He didn't want Bruce to know, but he said he needed me to be his point of contact." Tim sniffed and rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand. "It's been almost three weeks since I last heard from him, and he won't answer on any of the secure channels. I even reached out to some of Bruce's contacts in other cities, and, well, you for example."

Tim raised his head finally. A few more tears rolled away from his puffy eyes as he did, dripping off his chin. Jason watched him, still feeling that uncomfortable cold across the back of his neck. He could have sworn it had spread a little. Tim looked drained, exhausted even.

"Jason, I'm really worried." Tim said heavily. "Dick doesn't do this."

Jason realized that one of his hands had been hovering in empty air and tucked it back into his pocket. He took a step closer to Tim, paused for a moment, then sat back down on the bench beside him. He leaned back and stared up at the distant grey sky.

"He didn't say anything about why he left, or where he was going?" Jason asked, still looking up at the clouds.

Tim shook his head quickly. A drop of moisture hit Jason on the cheek, but he couldn't say if it was from Tim or from the possible rain.

"I'm sorry to drag you out here." Tim sniffed again. "There just wasn't anyone else to ask." He sat up and let out a sad laugh. "I really hoped that he was with you." He choked out.

Jason let out a snort. "If he was with me he'd be dead. I can stand about ten minutes of that guy before I want to strangle him." Tim seemed to bristle, and Jason almost wished he hadn't said anything. Almost.

"What do you think?"

"Eh?" Jason pulled his eyes away from the sky.

"You've known him longer than I have. You know him better. If he needed help, what would he do?"

Jason chuckled again. "I know him better huh?" A flood of uncomfortable memories began to creep into the back of his mind. He grimaced and pushed them away. Jason kicked his feet out and hopped up and off the bench, before turning and beginning to walk away.

"What I do know is that it's starting to rain and I'm not in the mood for a cold."

"J-Jason?"

Jason turned slightly and jerked his head indicating for Tim to follow. "You coming or not? I'll leave you."

"Ah, I'm coming!" Tim jumped up from the bench and ran up beside Jason, shimmying his backpack up onto his shoulder again.


	2. Chapter 2

Jason flopped down on the hard mattress with a grunt and a heavy thud. The impact rattled his teeth in his head, but it was better than no mattress at all. While Jason stretched his limbs out, Tim stood uncomfortably by the door.

Jason threw his arms up in the air with a flourish. "Welcome, to my humble abode." He said to the ceiling.

"This place is, uhhh…" Tim's words faded out at the end as he looked around the cramped room.

Jason waved one of his hands in a circular motion. "I'm not here for a leisure trip Tim. I'm not wasting my money on five stars." He sat up, propping his body up on his elbows and smiling devilishly. "What, has life in _casa de Wayne_ spoiled you or something?"

Tim swung his backpack off his shoulder and dropped it onto the spindly looking desk, at the same time spinning the chair around and taking a seat. "I'm afraid to touch anything in here." He said as he sat.

Outside, fat raindrops began to beat against the one, tiny window. Jason sat up on the bed and tucked his feet underneath himself. Tim watched him, and after a minute Jason gestured for the younger boy to continue speaking.

"I guess I'll start from the beginning." Tim said. He held out his hands and began to tick things off on his fingers. "I've tried his regular cell and both normal emails, I tried his business email, his business cell, all the normal satellite radio frequencies, all of Bruce's private channels that I could get into, I've monitored chatter on police and underground frequencies, I've checked with every contact Bruce has in as many cities as I could…and I talked to you." Tim dropped his hands down into his lap. "You were the only person left to talk to, but we hadn't heard from you in months either. I threw a hail-mary even reaching out to you. I just, didn't know what else to do."

Jason leaned forward and balanced his head on his palm and his elbow on his knee, tapping the finger of his other hand on the edge of his sneaker. A tiny twist of guilt was brewing in his stomach, the longer Tim spoke. It was true that he hadn't exactly stayed in contact with Tim or Bruce, or any of them for that matter. There were a whole lot of bad memories waiting for him in Gotham, grudges and enemies and old emotional scars. He had left quickly in an effort to get away from them, and had absolutely no desire to come back, for any reason.

But, even so… What little Tim had told him in his initial contact was that it had something to do with Dick. As much as he hated to admit it, Dick had always been kind to him, the type of kindness one would expect from an annoying, overbearing older brother. While Jason might have held a grudge against many people in Gotham, Dick wasn't one of them. Tim wasn't either, for that matter. And so, that little message had been enough to drag him out of his hidey-hole in his own city and make the motorcycle ride up.

"He didn't tell you anything before he left about what he was doing? Or where he was going?" Jason moved the finger that was tapping his shoe to tap his temple.

Tim shook his head no.

"Was he working anything specific before he left? Any big cases?"

Tim shook his head again. "He's been working mostly independently." He said. "I had only seen him coming and going from the manor every now and then, so I hadn't talked to him much before he left. I can't say what he was working on, but he seemed busy."

"Got a laptop?"

"Uhh, yeah. Right here." Tim dug into his backpack and pulled out the heavy looking computer. Jason reached out for it and Tim passed it to him.

"Jesus, you carry this brick around?" Jason flipped the device open and started the boot up.

Tim shrugged. "Anything smaller doesn't have the power I need. The weight doesn't bug me."

Jason shook his head with a smirk and kept typing rapidly, his fingers flying across the keys. Tim craned his neck, then stood from his chair and came around to peek over Jason's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"Watch the master work kiddo." Jason responded. "This is the shit big daddy bats doesn't teach you."

"Big daddy bats?"

Jason ignored Tim and pointed at the screen, now all black with many boxes of tiny white text scrolling rapidly past.

"This is my territory bucko. This is the dark web right here. If anything devious is going on, you'll find out about it here."

The mattress creaked and rocked as Tim climbed onboard, sitting with his knees folded beneath him as he peered over Jason's shoulder.

"So, you're looking for the something Dick was working on?"

"Bingo." Jason held up his pointer finger. "I'm checking the chatter for any mention of Nightwing, or a scrawny asshole with black hair, blue eyes, and terrible acting skills. Meanwhile, I need you to rack your brain for any little thing that might clue us into what he was getting involved in. That'll help me narrow the search here."

Jason heard Tim swallow thickly, but the boy didn't say anything. Instead, he chewed his lip again and watched silently while Jason began typing again.

The two of them sat silently for at least twenty minutes, the only sounds in the room the clicking of the computer keys and the pattering of rain against the window. Jason poured through forums and chatlogs, searching for anything that was suspicious or any mention of outside interference. He found everything as it usually was, depraved and very illegal, but not out of the ordinary.

"Oh! Wait I remember something!" Tim blurted out, his head popping up.

Jason's fingers paused over the keyboard. "Spill."

"A couple months ago I couldn't sleep, so I wandered downstairs to get some water. Dick was sitting at the table with a bunch of papers all spread out, and he covered them all up when I walked in. But, I remember there were two missing posters on top of the pile." Tim squinted his eyes shut and pressed a finger into his temple. "If I remember correctly, the names were, Ashley Capri and…Marcy Daniels!"

"Ok, that's a good start. Do you remember what they looked like?" Jason pounded the names into the system and watched the information scroll past.

Tim squinted even harder. "Ummmm… One was a redhead, and the other had really curly brown hair. "

"Are they Caucasian, black, Asian, latino, you gotta give me more to work with here."

"They were both white, that much I remember."

"Roger, let's see what we get here." Jason finished typing and bounced down into a menu tap, opening up a gallery of small, square images. He was very familiar with this part of the web, it was one of the databases he often poured through when looking for problems to solve. Tim, as it sounded, was not so experienced with it.

"What, is this?" Tim's voice was weighted by disgust and discomfort as he leaned further over Jason's shoulder.

"It's a human trafficking portal. One of many, and not a place you want to hang around in for very long. If those girls are still alive, its very possible we might find them here."

Tim let out another uncomfortable sounding gurgle as Jason scrolled through wall after wall of pictures.

"Would Dick know?" Tim said after a while.

"Know what?"

"About this site. Would he know to look here?"

Jason clicked to the next page and shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. He's a resourceful guy. But, even if he was looking for them through a different outlet, we might be able to intersect with him through a different approach."

"If we find the girls…"

"We find Dick."

Tim clicked his tongue unhappily. "Why didn't I think of this?" He said under his breath.

"Because it's not your style." Jason answered. "Bruce teaches you old fashioned gumshoe methods, but he keeps the heavy stuff to himself." Jason paused, swallowed a dry lump that had crawled up his throat. "For better or worse, he shields you from all the dark stuff. Until he can't anymore."

Tim's hand suddenly shot out past Jason's face, jabbing at a particular region of the laptop screen. "There! Right there!"

Jason blinked at the screen, then pushed his hand aside.

"I can't see through your damn hand."

"There, that's her. That's Marcy."

Jason moused over the image, enlarging it. The girl was sitting on an obnoxiously colored couch with her arms folded across her stomach and her knees tucked tightly together. Her hair was unkempt, and though the photo quality was low, she appeared to be wearing heavy makeup. The lower bodies of a few other people could be seen in the background behind the couch.

"Look, that's her." Tim held out his phone in his other hand, displaying the girls photo from the missing poster.

"MmmHmm. It does look like her." Jason nodded, and clicked on the image. Another scroll of miniscule text rolled across the screen and Jason followed it with his eyes, committing the information to memory. He clicked to an attached page, and Tim jabbed another finger at the screen.

"Look! There's the other one, there's Marcy." He said, pointing at another image of a girl sitting with her knees clutched against her chest and her hair loose over her shoulders.

Jason leaned in close to the screen as he enlarged the image. "Am I crazy or is that the same ugly ass couch?"

Tim leaned closer as well. By now his chest was pressed against Jason's back.

"It…is? Yeah, you're right."

"Interesting." Jason slapped down a few more keystrokes and navigated into a new window before inputting a flurry of text. As he did so, he raised his elbow and gave Tim a shove to the center of his chest. The younger boy tumbled back with a startled yelp and landed on his knees on the floor. His head popped up over the edge of the bed with an incredulous expression. Jason waved the back of his hand at him without turning around.

"Get out of here. I'm assuming you're sneaking around because you don't want Bruce to know about this, so go do some homework or something and keep your head down. I'll dig some more and see what holes I can crawl down on my own. See you tomorrow."

Tim stood up and brushed the dust from his knees. He looked down at Jason hunched over the computer and furrowed his brow. "That's my laptop." He said flatly.

"And it'll still be yours when I see you tomorrow. Scram."

Tim picked his bag up off of the desk again and stood awkwardly by the door, staring at Jason with an annoyed look. In his peripheral view Jason watched him open his mouth, then think better of it and close it again.

"I'll go back through things on our end and see if I can find anything helpful. Umm, see you tomorrow then?"

Jason gave a little salute with two fingers and returned to typing.

Tim blinked at him a few times, then nodded and shut the door behind him.


End file.
